‘Grim Landmark’: Fed Debt Exceeds $16 Trillion

The U.S. Treasury reported on Tuesday that as of Friday, Aug. 31, U.S. debt had officially exceeded $16 trillion.

“This is a grim landmark for the United States,” said Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) in a statement. “The gross debt of our federal government will, for the first time, surpass $16 trillion. That’s more government debt per person than Portugal, Italy, Spain, or Greece.”

The Alabama senator’s office released the following chart to help illustrate where we stand as a nation in terms of our debt:

Here are the official Treasury figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated). The government’s fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30:

“We are on a dramatically unsustainable path,” the senator’s statement reads. “[T]his crisis cannot be ducked. By failing to outline any serious plan for the financial future of this country, Democrats who run the Senate and the White House have no basis on which to ask to be kept in their majority.”

“The nation is in desperate need of strong executive leadership to end the financial chaos, restore discipline to government, and lead us to an economic renaissance,” the statement adds.

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